Unhelpful Guitar and Bass Lessons

I've renamed this story and made it the parent page of a "new" series of articles in the vein of my Unhelpful Flatland How-To's. I also edited for tone and content. -- Jon

#1: Right-Hand Techniques

In this article, I’m going to try and outline some general steps necessary to facilitate better integration of new right-hand techniques into a player’s personal style. I'll also present a bit of an overview of my own personal right-hand techniques of choice.

Technically speaking, I should label these “plucking techniques” instead of “right-hand” techniques, because it turns out that not all guitar or bass players play right-handed. But, for simplicity’s sake, I’m going to go with “right-hand” because I see no need to complicate this any more than I have to. If you pluck or pick with your left hand, substitute “left” for “right” and you should be good to go; if not, I can’t be held responsible for reading comprehension problems, blame the education institution of your choice for that one.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, a guitar or bass player decides to try and learn a new right-hand technique; maybe they think it sounds cool, maybe they decide they could do a lot more if only they had one more way of attacking the strings; the reason why doesn’t matter, really. If you, as a player, really really want to learn to play using a new technique, that’s enough of a reason; no need to say more.

Most people can figure out the correct way to learn a technique: practice. Repetition. As an example for this, I’ll use Victor Wooten’s trademark double-thumping thumb technique:

To start double thumping, you have to, first and foremost, figure out the right way to strike the string to get a tone. For most bass players, double thumping is double difficult, because most bass players who use thumb styles point their thumb down and bounce it off the strings like a mallet. Whereas double thumping uses upstrokes and downstrokes like a pick, and the easiest way to accomplish this is by pointing the thumb up, as if you’re giving the audience a thumb’s up (obvious statement is obvious)… meaning that the bass player has to get used to a completely different way of striking the string. It took me quite a while to get used to holding my hand differently, after having spent so much time trying to play slap bass in the “Flea”-type of style.

But, back to the example at hand, the bass player has to learn to hold the thumb right and strike the strings in a pleasing manner first, with both the downstroke and the upstroke, across all the strings, and be able to do so while consistently fretting notes and scales all the way up the neck. The fact that this learning method is consistent pretty much across all instruments is telling… as with everything else that’s a skill, proficiency rests entirely on the effort put into practicing.

But here’s my striking bit of insight regarding integrating the new technique into your every day style once you get the nominally “boring” part out of the way: take all the material you normally play using the old techniques, and play it all using the new techniques. Practice that until you can make it sound either just like it sounds with the original techniques, or you can make it sound musical in the context of the piece that you’re playing.

Making it “sound “musical” is a really objective term, but most players who’ve been at it for a while know what I’m talking about. Sometimes, you can bang away and hit all the right notes in all the correct places, and it still sounds like shit; it lacks something that pretty much unquantifiable, like “soul”. I’ve heard entire bands that play everything this way, usually at weddings or corporate functions, or when I hear Paul Anka perform “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or Pat Boone when he did the album of heavy metal covers. The problem of making something sound “musical” is the whole basis behind my dislike of Yngwie Malmsteen’s material; I’ve always maintained that he’s a “phenomenal athlete”, which has got to be one of the most infuriatingly passive-aggressive things that anyone could say to him, as he obviously takes his playing sooper srsly and doesn’t afraid of anything.

That said, Yngwie does know the importance of practice and repetition.

But this goes for any instrument, any technique you want to integrate. Learning to fingerpick? You already play “Hangar 18” with a pick? Fingerpick “Hangar 18”. Learning the open/hammer/pluck and double thump a bass, but you’re playing “Rocky Raccoon” on an acoustic guitar? Open/hammer/pluck and double thump “Rocky Raccoon”. I've played “Long Distance Runaround” on a 5-string bass with my thumb… it’s easy if you know that’s what you’re going to do, and you get good at doing it.

But I need to point out that I have a weird way of playing. When I play a 4 or 5-string bass, I’ll freely roam between traditional fingerstyle, basic thumping (what I call Victor Wooten-type slap/double thump/open/hammer/pluck/tap/ghost percussion), and really old-school thumb plucking with palm muting. And sometimes I roam without being aware I’m doing it until I hear something and have to ask why I’m doing, well, whatever it is I’m doing when I notice. When I play acoustic or baritone acoustic guitars, I play with my thumb and three fingers. But a lot of the time I use the thumb in the exact same way I use it when I’m thumping, and I still do a lot of the same other things I do when I’m thumping the bass. Like hammering half the notes I play to sound them with just my left hand, and covering the rest of the chords, or percussion or something, with my right hand.

And when I play a 6-string bass, I basically use proper, traditional jazz/classical fingerstyle guitar techniques. Or traditional bass fingerstyle, but not quite so much. But all these techniques are what I’ve defaulted to on each instrument. While I admit I haven’t spent a lot of time on the 6-string bass trying to integrate all my current techniques to it, I find it somewhat interesting that I default to those particular styles, as I don’t use those techniques as much on other instruments.

(edit: I've sold the six-string since I first wrote this... but I did integrate all my right-hand styles eventually.)

The good news? There isn’t really a “right” way for a lot of this stuff. There are recommendations, but in the end, it’s mostly how you can make all this work for you. That’s what’s important in the end… making it work for you.